Chapter 15

70 days left

L ong after midnight, Aria reviewed Baron's notes. Though her trip with Jenny could have been done in a day, she'd arranged to split it over two as part of her experiment to discover the limits of her curse. They'd paid for a night at the Stonewall inn, and Jenny slept soundly in a narrow bed along the far wall while Aria paced beside a small table, her journal tilted to catch the lamplight.

Unlike her own chaotic handwriting, Baron's flowed smoothly across the page, neat and orderly.

Magic is inherited through bloodline, but the inheritance is not strict. Stone and Fluid may arise in the same family. Casting is a dormant ability at first, and must be awoken by effort on the Caster's part.

Age plays no part in activation. Though testing begins at twelve years old, I received my witch's mark at six.

Of all his corrections, that haunted her most. She pressed one hand to her mouth as she paced, her eyes fixed on that number. Six. Her soul ached to think of a small child awaiting the blistering touch of heated iron.

As soon as she returned to the palace, she would review her great-grandmother's branding law. If it forbade early branding, as she imagined it must, she would hunt down the officials who'd registered Baron and see discipline administered. After that, she would speak to her father, and ...

And what? Persuade him to change the law?

She heard his voice in memory, giving the answer already: A monarch cannot waste time reevaluating when the path moves ever forward.

Aria clenched her jaw. She lowered her journal, staring around at a room silent beyond Jenny's breathing. The nervous energy inside pulsed, urging her to pace again, to move, to dance, to accomplish great things! All she wanted was a moment of peace to think.

Unable to focus, she tossed her journal on the bed and proceeded with the second task of the night—testing her curse.

Tonight's experiment was easy; no leeches required. Aria crossed the room and shook Jenny. The girl continued to sleep as Aria expected.

She ducked out of the room and knocked sharply on the next door over, where her footman, driver, and two guards slept. The guards and the driver had been in her family's service for years, but the footman was new, hired after Aria visited Widow Morton.

Aria knocked again, with more insistence.

After another moment, the door swung open, and a bleary-eyed footman peeked out at her, his shirt haphazardly buttoned, one section of hair sticking out above his ear. He gave a hasty bow.

"Highness?" he croaked. "What's wrong? I'll wake the—"

"Shh." Aria pressed a finger to her lips. Inside, she bounced with the joy of discovery, and she strained to hold back her smile. "I don't need the guards. It's no pressing matter. I seem to have misplaced my journal. Do you remember seeing it in the carriage?"

"No, I—I'll go search at once—"

"Never mind. It can wait until morning. Forgive me, I have lost track of the lateness of the hour."

The poor man didn't scowl at her as she deserved but merely nodded in confusion, gave another bow, and returned to bed.

After the door closed, Aria rubbed her hands quickly with all the nervous energy inside. This was something new! By leaving the castle at night to enter Sutton town and other areas, she'd already discovered the sleeping Cast did not follow her like a storm cloud, dropping anyone within its radius. It remained over the castle, even if she was not present.

But that was not quite accurate. The Cast captured people of the castle, no matter where they were. Jenny, the guards, the driver—they all slept, even hours from the palace.

But the newly hired footman could be woken.

Aria jogged down the stairs of the slumbering inn. She stepped out onto a deserted street, looking up at a canopy of stars. Even in the middle of the night, the autumn air barely held a chill, and it wrapped her in a calming cool.

Until a deeper chill emerged from within.

If the sleeping Cast was not a storm cloud hovering above Aria but rather an individual thing, did that mean Widow Morton had somehow cursed each member of the castle staff individually? How?

Spinning, Aria raced back up the stairs and into her room, the door banging against the wall with a loud thud that did nothing to wake Jenny. She snatched her journal and reread Baron's notes.

He had very little to say about Stone Casters—presumably because he himself was Fluid—but his few sentences stood out.

Aria's initial note had read, Stone Casters control stone. Straightforward.

Baron had clarified, Stone Casters can affect both surroundings and people as readily as Fluid Casters can. However, the influence of Stone Casters on others manifests in physical restraint or limitation, such as holding someone in place or putting them to sleep.

Widow Morton's curse grew more tangled the more Aria learned of magic. Did the sleeping effect mean the widow was secretly a Stone Caster? Why claim to be a different Caster type?

Aria remembered how Widow Morton had displayed her powers with tea, changing the temperature, vanishing the liquid. A Fluid Caster, then. What of the rest? Was it possible to be both Stone and Fluid Caster?

She could not hope to unravel this on her own.

She looked down at Baron's neat, orderly writing. She'd asked for help, and he'd given it. She'd even tasted his magic and not regretted it.

To overcome one Caster, it seemed clear she needed another.

But despite the determination surging in her chest, the chill returned. She thought of another moment when she'd written to a Caster. She remembered a peace agreement in her hands turning to liquid and dripping right off the page.

No matter how noble one might seem, a Caster couldn't be trusted. Aria couldn't afford to repeat the same mistake. Not when she was still paying the cost from the first time.

She closed her journal once more.

The morning after her return home, Aria's father summoned her to the throne room. With nothing but lessons to occupy her for the day, Aria wore trousers and a vest, enjoying the freedom of a day without formal attire. She had enough dragging her toward sleep without the added weight of trailing skirts.

"You wished to see me, Father?" Aria stopped at the bottom of the dais.

Barely glancing away from conversation with his advisers, her father gestured for her to take the seat next to him. She climbed the stairs as slowly as possible, trying not to appear like a ninety-year-old woman ready to rest after a single step.

Luckily, the three men quickly finished their conversation about exports, and by the time Aria settled in her throne, Philip and Emmett had taken their leave.

Her father angled to face her, expressionless.

In the silence, Aria's heart beat faster as she considered every mistake she'd made that morning and the day previous. And the day before that.

Did he know of her visit to Baron? If he asked why she sought out a Caster, what could she say?

"So." Her father raised an eyebrow at last. "Crampton's son. Of all the options."

Aria released her breath in a rush. Of course—she'd not had a chance to speak to her father since making her courtship with Lord Kendall official.

"I distinctly remember pointing him out to you at the falconry event this spring, and you said the boy had the bearing of a plucked rooster."

If only that impression had stayed with Aria as a warning. Alas. The mere thought of choosing someone else was too exhausting, so she would make do with Lord Kendall. Besides, how large a flaw were chicken wings, really?

"There are more considerations to be made than looks ," Aria said, settling more comfortably into her throne.

"Yes, but looks must be braved first."

Aria released a puff of laughter.

Then her traitorous mind dangled before her the thought of the most handsome man she'd seen recently—her first view of Baron as she left the carriage, his tawny hair tangled in sunlight, his green eyes bright as the orchard leaves behind him. The faint smile crossing his face as they locked eyes.

Her father squinted, and Aria suddenly feared he'd been speaking while her mind wandered. Thankfully, if he had, he didn't wait for a response before continuing.

"Very well, then." The king waved a hand, dangling casually from the arm of his throne. "If looks have been ignored, tell me his other virtues."

A most refreshing cup of tea. Manners in excess. Enough diligence to maintain a stunning orchard.

It took Aria's foggy mind far too long to focus on the right young man.

"Lord Kendall is skilled at ..." She couldn't mention the music. It would only remind her father of the queen. "At bowing."

Inwardly, Aria groaned as her day-brain failed her again.

Speaking nonsense. Mark.

Her father's pointed stare questioned her capability, so Aria rushed to add, "Many women of court find his eyes quite dreamy."

Other women? Wake up, Aria!

"I see." The king nodded slowly, his good humor fading into the familiar mask he wore whenever conducting difficult royal business. "Aria, speak honestly. Did you choose your suitor on a whim?"

"Perhaps I was not as careful in my consideration as I might have been. However—"

Her father cut her off with a sharp sigh. He straightened on his throne, looking out at the room's towering stained-glass windows.

"A royal," he said with slow deliberateness, "can never be reckless. Action by whim, without consideration, leads to mistakes. If the Crown is seen to make mistakes, all authority is lost. Do you understand?"

Aria heard those mistakes in her mind, tallied by a quill that slept as infrequently as she did.

"Yes, Father," she said quietly.

He allowed the silence to lengthen before he said, "Your visit to Northglen. Was it considered, or was it by whim?"

All at once, Aria returned to that mountainside, the frigid wind bearing down on her neck, spreading goose bumps. As if her tongue had fallen asleep, she struggled to manage a single word. "What?"

"Hiring a mercenary guard, paying them from the royal treasury—did you think I would never discover? Do you think me daft , Aria? I've been waiting for you to admit the matter yourself, but it seems you foolishly thought you could keep the secret forever."

The king's dark eyes pierced her, and she shrank against her throne.

"Father, I . . ."

What could she say? Her own body refused to allow her to speak of her curse.

"Once I'd tracked them down, your guards had quite a story about peace negotiations, which they swear ended favorably with a signed, sealed letter, yet I've seen no hint of it."

Aria had burned it, the way she'd once burned a quill and parchment, hoping fire could erase her mistakes. Widow Morton gave her signature to peace with one hand yet wielded an assassin's knife with the other.

"I did go to discuss peace." Aria sagged in relief as her voice came free. As long as she avoided addressing the curse, it seemed she could still speak of that night. "I sought to mend the relationship between our families, to avoid a possible rebellion, and Widow Morton assured me—"

Her father swore, leaning away. "Aria, that woman declared open hostilities against the Crown. You entered her home , alone, unaided—"

"I had guards."

"Paid mercenaries who could just as easily have been paid by her!" The king's voice rose. "In eighteen years of tutoring, have you learned nothing? You could have been killed! You could have been retained as a hostage against me. Did you not think ?"

Aria's heart thudded with extra weight in her chest.

"No," she whispered. "I didn't think. I only hoped."

Mark.

She'd hoped to prove to her father she could do something right for the kingdom. Instead, she'd drawn his ire more than ever, and rightfully so.

She was a hostage, marching toward death. All his worst fears were confirmed.

"I'm sorry, Father."

He sighed, raking one hand through his black hair. They sat in cold silence, alone in a stone room too big to be a prison cell but with the feeling of one all the same.

At last, he said, "What of the letter?"

Aria swallowed. "It was a lie."